When I was young, I was nothing short of a miracle child.

When I was born in November 1990, I had a congenital inner ear malformation where the left semicircular canal and vestibular organ remained unformed as a cavity, leaving me with unilateral development where only the right side formed properly.
Although the cochlea was fully formed, it is noted that I had profound hearing loss from birth, as my demeanor while riding the bus around 3 months old was too calm. While I was being held in my father's arms, I cannot know if that was an atypical reaction; white noise might be comforting, but it was certainly an extremely loud environment.
Seeing how my mother would hold me and grab my hands to help me adjust my standing posture, I wonder if she was helping because she saw me wobbling. That might have been a sign that my vestibular organs were malfunctioning. Around 9 months old, I could be seen standing fully upright by leaning against one wall, and seeing that I could maintain that for several minutes, it seems my vestibular compensation mechanism was functioning well.
My parents recognized my hearing impairment after a definitive diagnosis at Gwangju Chosun University Hospital at 18 months, which would have been around June 1992. After that, family outing photos skip from April to November 1992.
Looking at a photo taken at Seoul Lotte World in February 1993, as my mother lifted me up to take a photo while I was looking at the landscaping pond in the background, I was struggling violently; it seems it was a period when I was completely reliant on vision. Since my point of reference disappeared and I was suddenly lifted, it was a violent survival instinct response, and even after that, I seemed to be in a state of severe sulking.
After registering as a person with a disability in February 1994, I entered the kindergarten department of a school for the deaf. It seems I was initially assigned a Grade 2 hearing impairment; normally it should have been Grade 1, but it seems that wasn't the case. It appears that because I was prescribed hearing aids at the Hearing Aid Center around age 3 and some language was "injected" into me, my grade was lowered from 1 to 2.
Two months after entering the kindergarten department in February 1994, my younger sister was born, and I remember a period of absence where my mother was not around for a while. I cannot know if the time I spent living with my father was during that period, and I cannot tell if my memory of the 110V/220V converter behind the TV is from that time or later. My sister was born in April. At that time, my mother had an extremely unhappy expression while leaving my newborn younger sister behind.
I don't know where I learned such a negative word, but I don't remember anything clearly. I don't know whether the concept of "dying" was formed and entered my mind from somewhere, or if it was overlaid later.
Did I really learn that many words in just those two months from February to April 1994 at the school for the deaf kindergarten? Anyway,
There was no reason to be that unhappy in the latter half of 1994, and the same goes for 1995. Even though it was the period when the school for the deaf kindergarten was being disbanded and absorbed by the Ministry of Education, and I moved to the Sunshine Language Education Center, my rehabilitation was on track, so there was no reason for my mother to feel extreme unhappiness. If so, it might indeed be right after my sister's birth in May 1994. There is a photo taken by my father, who used to come home on weekends, of my five-year-old self in pajamas, crawling around playing with toys, oblivious to the world, while my mother had an unhappy expression on a chilly May night.
Anyway, I remember recalling a ladybug I saw somewhere on the school for the deaf kindergarten campus around October 1994 during my elementary school years, and at that time, my mother used to play by spinning me around while holding my hands. It seems parents were gathering back then to visit each other's homes, but my emotional distance from my childhood friends became too great. I can't even remember things like visiting a certain red-colored meat restaurant, which would suggest a significant relationship.
When I attended individual language therapy in 1995, I went with a girl I had known since the school for the deaf, and I recall mentioning that I was taller than her. I also remember a day when a teacher tried to remove something from my fingernail—whether it was skin peeling off like a blade of grass or pus—and accidentally caused bleeding, but I said I was fine. I doubt that happened in kindergarten.
In kindergarten in 1996, there would have been things like playing on a seesaw, floating boats in a log-shaped water channel, watching pendulums swing, convex and concave mirrors, and various games. My poses are quite something, but my withdrawn appearance isn't clearly visible.
In the first grade of elementary school, I refused to go to school because of dictation tests and hid inside the iron gate of the central passage on the first floor of the apartment complex, where a resident found me and I was forcibly dragged out. In the second grade, for some reason, I became the vice president, though I don't know what I did. From second to fourth grade, there were reading competitions in a written test format, and I won top honors or excellence awards five times in a row, proving that I had fully caught up with my language development delays.
Skipping everything else, on December 26, 2000, Professor Kim Ri-seok of Dong-A University Hospital performed my right cochlear implant surgery. According to the medical records, as soon as he penetrated the temporal bone and entered the cochlea, there was a phenomenon where cerebrospinal fluid gushed out (gush phenomenon), but the electrode was immediately inserted. The electrode was successfully inserted and settled completely without touching the gustatory or facial nerves. This is almost the touch of God.
And six months after that cochlear surgery, I scored 95% on a language assessment. Typically, it is said to be around 30%, though that might be because they are young children. Still, it would certainly be an outlier figure among IEM (Inner Ear Malformations) cases.
Anyway, seeing that there were only 22 cases of the "gush phenomenon" as of 2006, a successful surgery must be called a miracle stemming from the surgeon's deep experience.